Changed imagination, changed obedience

the long version

In this work, Houghtby-Haddon takes a new look at an old text, using the theory of social imagination as an exegetic guide. In her exploration of the bent-over woman story in Luke 13:10-17, Houghtby-Haddon uncovers clues suggesting that this story is a key interpretive text for seeing Luke's social vision for his community at work. Exploring mythic, social, communal, and cultural elements beneath the surface of the story, Houghtby-Haddon suggests that the bent-over woman is the embodiment of Jesus' claim in the synagogue of Nazareth that "today, these Scriptures are fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:16-21), and that the woman prefigures the post-Pentecostal community that will gather in Jesus' name. The author concludes by taking the theory from the gospel of Luke to the streets to see how a contemporary neighborhood group might use the social imagination model, and the new reading of the story of the bent-over woman, to imagine a twenty-first-century social vision for its own community: a vision that more fully embodies the just community Jesus proclaims in Nazareth.